Opinion
January 25, 1988
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Kings County (Broomer, J.).
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed.
Viewing the evidence adduced at trial in the light most favorable to the People, we find that it is legally sufficient to support the defendant's conviction of the crime charged (see, People v Lewis, 64 N.Y.2d 1111). Moreover, upon the exercise of our factual review power, we are satisfied that the evidence established the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and that the verdict was not against the weight of the evidence (CPL 470.15).
In addition, we find that the trial court did not act improperly in warning one of the People's witnesses that he was subjecting himself to possible perjury or contempt charges due to his frequent lack of recall in the face of his having given a full factual statement to the prosecutor prior to testifying (see, People v Gottfried, 61 N.Y.2d 617; People v Lee, 58 N.Y.2d 773). We reject the defendant's contention that these admonitions, coupled with the trial court's allowing the witness to thereafter continue testifying, denied the defendant a fair trial (cf., Webb v Texas, 409 U.S. 95; People v Stanley, 133 A.D.2d 654; People v Ramos, 63 A.D.2d 1009).
Finally, our review of the record indicates that the trial court's charge, which employed a hypothetical factual scenario to explain to the jurors the distinction between intentional and reckless murder, did not, particularly when viewed in the context of the court's entire charge in his case, remove the determination of the question of whether the defendant was the perpetrator of the crime from the jury (see, People v Mosley, 67 N.Y.2d 985). Mangano, J.P., Brown, Rubin and Harwood, JJ., concur.